The Complete Poems of Robert Browning - 22 Poetry Collections in One Edition. Robert Browning
And star for star, one richness where they mixed
As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,
Tumultuary splendours folded in
To die. Nor turned he till Ferrara’s din
(Say, the monotonous speech from a man’s lip
Who lets some first and eager purpose slip
In a new fancy’s birth — the speech keeps on
Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone)
— Aroused him, surely offered succour. Fate
Paused with this eve; ere she precipitate
Herself, — best put off new strange thoughts awhile,
That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile, —
What help to pierce the future as the past
Lay in the plaining city?
And at last
The main discovery and prime concern,
All that just now imported him to learn,
Truth’s self, like yonder slow moon to complete
Heaven, rose again, and, naked at his feet,
Lighted his old life’s every shift and change,
Effort with counter-effort; nor the range
Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked,
Some other — which of these could he suspect,
Prying into them by the sudden blaze?
The real way seemed made up of all the ways —
Mood after mood of the one mind in him;
Tokens of the existence, bright or dim,
Of a transcendent all-embracing sense
Demanding only outward influence,
A soul, in Palma’s phrase, above his soul,
Power to uplift his power, — such moon’s control
Over such sea-depths, — and their mass had swept
Onward from the beginning and still kept
Its course: but years and years the sky above
Held none, and so, untasked of any love,
His sensitiveness idled, now amort,
Alive now, and, to sullenness or sport
Given wholly up, disposed itself anew
At every passing instigation, grew
And dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt,
Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a gilt
Shield in the sunshine, now a blinding race
Of whitest ripples o’er the reef — found place
For much display; not gathered up and, hurled
Right from its heart, encompassing the world.
So had Sordello been, by consequence,
Without a function: others made pretence
To strength not half his own, yet had some core
Within, submitted to some moon, before
Them still, superior still whate’er their force, —
Were able therefore to fulfil a course,
Nor missed life’s crown, authentic attribute.
To each who lives must be a certain fruit
Of having lived in his degree, — a stage,
Earlier or later in men’s pilgrimage,
To stop at; and to this the spirits tend
Who, still discovering beauty without end,
Amass the scintillations, make one star
— Something unlike them, self-sustained, afar, —
And meanwhile nurse the dream of being blest
By winning it to notice and invest
Their souls with alien glory, some one day
Whene’er the nucleus, gathering shape alway,
Round to the perfect circle — soon or late,
According as themselves are formed to wait;
Whether mere human beauty will suffice
— The yellow hair and the luxurious eyes,
Or human intellect seem best, or each
Combine in some ideal form past reach
On earth, or else some shade of these, some aim,
Some love, hate even, take their place, the same,
So to be served — all this they do not lose,
Waiting for death to live, nor idly choose
What must be Hell — a progress thus pursued
Through all existence, still above the food
That ‘s offered them, still fain to reach beyond
The widened range, in virtue of their bond
Of sovereignty. Not that a Palma’s Love,
A Salinguerra’s Hate, would equal prove
To swaying all Sordello: but why doubt
Some love meet for such strength, some moon without
Would match his sea? — or fear, Good manifest,
Only the Best breaks faith? — Ah but the Best
Somehow eludes us ever, still might be
And is not! Crave we gems? No penury
Of their material round us! Pliant earth
And plastic flame — what balks the mage his birth
— Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block?
Flinders enrich the strand, veins swell the rock;
Nought more! Seek creatures? Life ‘s i’ the tempest, thought
Clothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraught
With fervours: human forms are well enough!
But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuff
Profuse at nature’s pleasure, men beyond
These actual men! — and thus are over-fond
In arguing, from Good — the Best, from force
Divided — force combined, an ocean’s course
From this our sea whose mere intestine pants
Might seem at times sufficient to our wants.
External power! If none be adequate,
And he stand forth ordained (a prouder fate)
Himself a law to his own sphere? “Remove
“All incompleteness!” for that law, that love?
Nay, if all other laws be feints, — truth veiled
Helpfully to weak vision that had failed
To grasp aught but its special want, — for lure,
Embodied? Stronger vision could endure
The unbodied want: no part — the whole of truth!
The People were himself; nor, by the ruth
At their condition, was he less impelled
To alter the discrepancy beheld,
Than if, from the sound whole, a sickly part
Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art,
Then palmed on him as alien woe —